Want a Can’t Miss Productivity Tip? Forget About Being Productive.

Brigid Schulte was quoted in the New York Times about how long work hours have been erroneously associated with greater productivity:

Brigid Schulte, the director of the Better Life Lab at New America and the author of “Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time,” said American culture has long believed that working longer means working harder and being more productive, despite the flaws in that way of thinking. She noted the idea that there is a “productivity cliff” — workers are only productive for a certain number of hours, after which their productivity declines and they may begin making mistakes.

“We’ve long had this really erroneous connection between long work must mean hard work and productivity, and it never has,” she said.

Productivity may also no longer be the be-all end-all it once was.